Where are you based?
Our HQ is in the quaint town of Bracknell in the southeast of the UK! (That's about 40 miles from the capital of London). However, our team is based around the world. You'll find them in the US, Canada, Australia, Lithuania, the Philippines, Brazil, and Austria.
Do you accept payments from countries outside the UK?
Yes! We operate around the globe, therefore we offer payment options accordingly. We accept the following methods of payment:
Credit card | Debit Card | European Bank Transfer | Wise | PayPal
Do you publish books?
Unfortunately, no. Not at present, anyway! (Watch this space...)
Instead, we offer pre-publication services to individual writers and authors, and publishing companies. This means that our services are suitable for everything before you publish your book.
Do you offer payment plans?
We do, however there are terms and criteria to meet.
1) The price of the project must exceed $600 USD/£600 GBP
2) The full amount must be paid by the project completion date
3) Each payment is subject to an interest payment of 10%
I found a service cheaper elsewhere. Will you price-match/beat it?
We don't aim to be the cheapest, we aim to be the best.
We believe in fair pay for our team, so we do not offer price-matching. Our prices are set according to our experience and high quality. We know times can be tough, but publishing a book is a business. It requires an investment. If you'd like to work with us, and we assume you do if you're asking this question, we welcome you, but at the fair prices we set for our services.
Do you have a policy/stance on AI?
Stardust Book Services do not support AI use in the creative industry.
For art, we do not condone the use of AI-generated images. All of the art we produce is made by our artists from scratch, and we are always happy to provide progress images of your art being created.
For book covers, illustrated covers are designed from scratch by the artist. For photo manipulated covers, we use legal stock from reputable, paid-for sites like iStock and Shutterstock where artists are subject to scrutiny and AI art is banned.
For manuscripts being submitted for editing, we do not accept stories written by AI. If a manuscript is submitted and later found to be a product of AI, your contract will be terminated without refund. We do not ban the use of AI for the generation of ideas and prompts in writing, but any words that are not exclusively your own are not allowed. We would also advise that any ideas AI generates are generally formulaic, designed by using popular ideas and tropes, so these may not be good for your story.
How can I become a freelancer for you?
We're humbled that you're interested in working with us! We currently have a full roster of freelancers, but we will update this page as and when we need more. If you offer a service that we currently do not have listed, then we'd be interested in hearing from you at any time!
*UPDATE
We are looking for author VAs (Virtual assistants)!
If you're an experienced VA specialising in working with authors, we'd love to hear from you!
Do I need to provide credit/attribution for any services?
For any design-based service (cover design, chapter art, illustrations etc), we do ask for credit in printed material. In online spaces, we ask for credit only once, but of course you're welcome to credit us as much as you like!
For editing, we do not ask for credit by default. If you would like to credit your editor, we prefer that you ask permission first.
Any credit given is collaborative between Stardust Book Services and our team members and you will be provided the correct wording to use in your contract.
Do you offer internships or work experience?
We are currently open to offering work experience of 1 week to local teens in secondary school looking for work experience as part of their careers week programme (or similar programme).
Unfortunately, we are unable to offer employment outside of those on our freelance roster, nor are we able to offer work experience or internships outside of the aforementioned careers programme.